Information junkie
by horgoz
Summary: Hannah Sheppard never joined the Alliance Military, she had a very different career...
1. Chapter 1

_I own nothing, everything belongs to Bioware, I earn nothing from writing this and so on and on..._

* * *

"Now that is just sick, telling a parent that her is dead while he is actually kidnapping the kid? Cerberus has gone just a bit to far this time, high biotic potential? Hm, let's request a report from Pragia on the girl's potential before committing." a brief pause was heard as the voice stopped speaking to itself before a small bleep was heard, "Agent Janus, i want you to track down a family for me, Nought, Matilda, Nought, Jonathan, no contact and keep tracking them for at least five months, received? Good, have a nice day!"

looking to her right Hannah Shepard smiled as she saw her seven year sitting quietly at the small table in the center of the large room, carefully drawing her tiny paintbrush along the custom built model of the very ship they were on, the open shutters allowed some light from Sowilo enter and reveal the faint System Alliance blue colour that Sarah Shepard was painting on the ship's hull, Hannah did think that it looked allot nicer than the dull metal grey it really was, but then it was only a model.

"looking good Sarah?" she said and her smiled widened just a bit when she only got a short hum in reply as her daughter refused to move her focus from the plastic model.

Turning back to the giant screen Hannah let her smile drop just a bit, she knew exactly why her stubborn daughter had picked Alliance blue as the colour for the ship, she desperately wanted to join the Alliance navy, she had idolized her father who had been an Alliance Marine, he had just been commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant when the First Contact War had broken out and he had been killed halfway through the war.

It had been a bad time but Hannah had been able to divert some of her pain as she focused on her daughter and her work as the individual now known to the galaxy as The Shadow Broker, capital letters when writing or be shot.

Her husband had known about her work but he had been adamant in the fact that she wouldn't use her network to... help him in being promoted, she had of course ignored that when possible, after all one of her late husband's many faults had been that he was entirely to moral sometimes.

Pulling up some documents on her screen she started to work on her daughter's _potential _future in the Alliance Military, _potential_ mind you because if she had her way there was no way that her daughter would ever join those vacuum breathers.

* * *

Hannah watched with pride as her now eleven year old daughter shifted information through one of the side screen, consuming vast amounts of information in a surprisingly fast amount of time, Alliance battle reports against Batarian pirates, (a few of them who had actually had their raids funded by Hannah so that her daughter would be able to receive and read those very reports) anti smuggling duties, (again, some of those funded by Hannah) with a few reports made by Alliance exploration teams, it was with some additional delight that she noticed Sarah's eagerness at receiving the exploration reports, that was a much safer career for her daughter... with a mercenary fleet backing her up of course.

"Mom?" Hannah returned her focus to the present and away from her plans as her daughter demanded her focus, she didn't say anything but she knew that her daughter could see that she had Hannah's attention.

"I think we should increase Charn's funding, there is allot of reports for various metal deposits in the Skylian Verge and some of the mining corporations are going to want to exploit them, allot of opportunities for mercenaries."

Hannah really tried but she wasn't able to hold back her grin, her daughter could be so forgetful sometimes, "sweetie, you forget that I get those reports before you do, I send them to you remember?"

Sarah's blush made Hannah's grin widen slightly, it wasn't often that Sarah blushed, everything she learned about the galaxy through her mother's network had made sure of that. But she wanted her daughter to know how dangerous the galaxy could really be, which is why she had given Sarah her first reports when she had just become eight years old.

She thought it had done her daughter allot of good, Sarah had after all never left the ship in her entire life so her only contact had been her mother, and occasionally, some of the security guards stationed on it, after the first such incident Hannah had made sure that they all though Sarah was some kind of long term project instead of her daughter, that would after all reveal that The Shadow Broker was a human while the galaxy currently believed that The Broker was either an Asari or a group of people, the later served her interests, the former did not.

Pulling up her omni tool she noticed a new message from the Nought family, that investment had really paid off despite the loss of an information source, not that it had mattered, she had several agent's at Pragia and dozen's more throughout Cerberus.

Included in the message was the usual report from the family's security, the minute detail of their daily lives (Jaqueline had apparently been to intent on climbing some rocks and had broken her knee) for the last month on Mindoir written out in perfect detail. She had her Neural Interface mark down a bonus and a minor pay raise for the team for that, information was power after all.

Oh my, the Turian Councillor Sparatus was pushing for several more dreadnoughts, she would have to help him out a bit, maybe make sure that The Alliance offered some co-development on building some new frigate's? The Turians had been interested in some kind of stealth ship as of late and The Alliance could certainly help with that, if just the Turians made a few good words for The Alliance so that they could get an Embassy on the citadel...

And of course some of her engineer's would be involved in the research, stealth technology could be really useful for her ship if she ever had to move it from the planet.

* * *

"so where are you this week Sarah? Your guards are having trouble keeping up with you, so slow down please, you lost them at Arcuturus, AGAIN!" Hannah's face was pale with fury at her now sixteen year old daughter, Sarah had been allowed to go out and explore the galaxy for a few months on the condition that she had some... special operatives with her, of course, just Hannah would have done, Sarah had agreed and then promptly lost them as soon as she could.

"Relax Mom, I am on Mindoir, i wanted to visit the Nought's, using my agent persona of course, i wanted to see the fourth addition to the family, the baby is sooo cute in the pictures! They are away on some kind of vacation though so i decided to visit the local Nursery, i found the cutest baby girl here! she wouldn't let my finger's go whenever she could get a grip on them, it's adorable, she is just a few weeks old and her mom and dad leave her here whenever they must, i have been allowed to play with her a bit even! With oversight and a quick lesson on child care of course."

Hannah felt her anger melt away at her daughter's tone through the speakers, she tried to hold on to it but eventually gave up, "I know sweetie, but you still shouldn't let your guard get the slip, it makes me worried and I _Don't _like being worried about anything, you stay on Mindoir and wait for your guards or I am making sure that they catch up to you and bring you straight home, understood?" she ignored her daugter's pout on the screen and after a few moment's her stubborn daughter gave up and reluctantly agreed to wait for them.

They continued talking for awhile while Hannah absently sent a notice to her daughters escort that her daughter was on Mindoir before they stopped, her job as The Shadow Broker never stopped after all.

While working she couldn't help but think about her daughter's latest fixation, taking care of babies, Hannah had considered getting another one for awhile when Sarah was twelve years old (using a surrogate mother of course) but in the end she had decided against it.

Suddenly she froze as she remembered just where her daughter had said she was, Mindoir, looking at the clock she groaned as she realised the Batarian slaver raid would arrive in less than teen minutes, she had arranged the Nought's vacation just so they would be away during it, and now her moronic daughter decided to visit it _just before the raid!?_

"stupid moronic girl, I am going to take her over my knee when she get back home..." she muttered as she sent a priority message to The Alliance Fleet with the necessary information about the raid,

it was hours later that Hannah finally let herself calm down as she received word that Sarah hadn't been among the unlucky individuals to have been taken, she apparently had a Lieutenant Zabaleta to thank for it and by god she intended to give him whatever he needed or wanted.

All this was only in the background of her thoughts as she quickly dug up the name of the Batarian slaver gang, they wouldn't be able to enjoy the spoils of their raid, that she gave a silent vow too...

* * *

Hannah watched through the screen with pride as she saw her daughter endure brutal words of her Alliance instructor as she ran along the course with the rest of her fellow recruits, breathing heavily while the instructor made it seem easy, Sarah had joined The Alliance Military on the day she had become eighteen much to Hannah's annoyance and fierce pride, she had provided allot of alternatives over the years but her daughter knew what she wanted.

But Hannah knew that she had taught her daughter well, the skill of quickly taking in her surroundings would certainly help her in combat if it ever came to it, not to mention her strong ability to take in information from whatever source she received and quickly deduce the possible motives of both source and subject as well as any potential gain, danger or future opportunity.

Her daughter's new found Biotic abilities would also help her survive any combat situation, And if Alliance training or Biotics wouldn't cut it, well some very special spec ops forces would always be on standby somewhere nearby to help wouldn't there?

* * *

_yes I know that Jack was actually kidnapped a few years later than she was here, i only realised that after I had already written it but I didn't want to change it so I left it as is._

_reviews please!  
_


	2. Chapter 2

_disclaimers are in the first chapter_

* * *

"well that was intense, Eliza, activate Operative Genie will you?" "as you wish Shadow Broker, and I have to mention that project name is really bad." the VI like hologram replied and Hannah held back a grin at the AI's sudden childlike tone, "many time Eliz, now go, time is money"

the AI gave a short nod before she left, allowing Hannah to finally relax, the last few day's had been hectic, Cerberus had done a very bold move when they used a political dissident to have the UNAS president as well as CPF premire assassinated, normally Hannah wouldn't care but she had her own plans for the Alliance and they did not include Cerberus, (also they had previously assassinated Pope Clement XVI a few years earlier, an old friend of hers, even if he didn't know it) so a small scale information war had erupted for a few short weeks, firstly to prevent the assassination and when that had succeeded to implicate several Cerberus aligned companies.

So far her crowning achievement had been the successful destruction of the Terra Firma party, true they would just reform under a new name, but they had lost allot of money due to heavy fines (which of course would make their ways to The Shadow Broker's hands) and the arrest of several high placing individual's in several companies, including several high ranking humans inside Binary Helix.

A large grin formed on her face as she remembered that operation, Binary Helix had nothing to do with Cerberus but having several high placed Agents within the corporation would assure her _allot _more Intel not to mention different research projects, the infinitely hard security shell that had been Binay Helix had finally been cracked.

Now all she would need to do was have her Agent's recommend to hire some rather _expensive_ labs from Noveria Development Corporation, owned by herself under an assumed name of course, she couldn't help but letting out a small squeal at her own excitement, after all every single building had been built with listening devices and sensor's into it, all of them sending information to her new AI friend to sort through, exciting times for an information broker ahead!

Stretching for a nearby sandwich she activated her Neural Interface and begun her planning, another triumph had also occurred far away from earth recently when she finally managed to recruit a spectre to her cause, an asari by the name Tela Vasir, it was an unstable relationship at the moment but Hannah had nothing planned that could threaten it so it would grow stronger over time as long as Vasir recived the Intel she needed.

Other operations was going very well, The Turian's and The Alliance had recently made a small breakthrough on their stealth ship and Hannah had managed to get copies of the new Alliance dreadnoughts that was being built, she had even placed in an order for one of her own with one of her own shipyards, keeping any prying eyes away while ensuring the supplies arrived was a logistical nightmare though made only slightly easier as several frigates was being built for different mercenary factions as well as some larger pirate gangs.

She was drawn from her thoughts by an incoming message and a tiny smile came on her face as she recognized it and opened the channel, "Shadow Broker here" "Operative Genie here, mission accomplished, The Illusive Man is dead and all contacts are secure, orders?"

the smile on Hannah's face split out in a large grin as the evidence of the death of her long time opponent was displayed on the screen. "Standby at your location, my Spec Ops are on their way," the push of a button made sure of that. "you have honored your side of the deal, I will honor mine, your sister Oriana will be safe you have my word on that.. And your father will suffer an unfortunate accident as promised, anything else you want?"

the young woman on the screen, a miss Miranda Lawson only gave a small sorrowful nod, "I would like to.. I would like be excused of my services so I can spend some time with my sister if that is alright?" Hannah barred her teeth in a feral smile as another of her private predictions came true, even "the perfect human" could be predictable, not that the woman could actually see her.

"of course, Family is important, I only need you to wait for my other Agent's arrive and let them get familiar with the Cerberus system's before you leave, should take no more than three days, you will of course be paid for your time, oh and did TIM smoke another cigar before you finished him?".

The young woman gave a short acknowledgment to the questions before Hannah cut the connection, less than a second after that she was dancing all over the room,m laughing madly, Cerberus was hers!

And TIM had smoked his final cigar, she briefly wondered what his reaction would have been if he had found out that his need of cigarettes had been what allowed her to track him down and lead to his eventual assassination?

She had another fit of laughter as her imagination took over.

* * *

Sarah Sheppard was not in a good mood as she fired away another burst towards the nearest Batarian pirate that was currently floating through the air, the pistol rounds being stopped by his still active shields and as she took cover she once more cursed her biotics, as an Adept she didn't have any kind of rifle, much to her annoyance, one of the Alliance Military's fault was their trust in biotic strength and small squads, which didn't help her now when the rest of her squad was dead.

Another curse came out of her mouth as she was sprayed with small stones as a bullet hit uncomfortably close, taking another chance she pulled out of cover and fired wildly with her pistol while she focused her biotics and threw out her arm, the targeted Turian was thrown into a large rock, she ignored the crunch that came from him when he hit it with his head first.

Meanwhile one of her fired bullet's had gotten lucky and a Batarian slowly fell to the ground, the left side of his face gone, but the pirates were getting dangerously close with their fire again so she ducked down again, temporarily safe behind her rock, a rock which she loved very much at the moment while she took a short moment to be queasy, the sight of the dead Batarian's face managing to penetrate her survival instincts, her mothers reports and combat videos might have prepared her some but seeing it happening with her own eyes was a whole new experience.

After a few seconds the pirates shooting started to slow down and she pulled out of her cover once more, taking in their positions in an instant she saw for the first time a krogan among the pirates and she almost froze with terror before she managed to suppress it and used her biotics to lift him up in the air, unfortunately her slight pause had focused the pirate's fire again and she ducked back down and started crawling away from her former position.

She didn't get far before she got an idea and quickly counted the seconds in her head, just when she was sure that her lift was about the end she poped back up and unleashed a throw on the krogan who was thrown into the ground, roaring in pain and and anger as his momentum dragged him along the ground, several quick pistol shots hopefully ended his life before she got into cover once more.

A sudden roar made her look up and she could feel tears of joy coming into her eyes as she noticed one of her mother's Mantis Gunship's hovering in the air above her, the second after that she let out a scream of pain as the sound of it's guns firing filled her ears, an instinctive response let her put her hands over her ears as she continued to grimace in pain.

She was very thankful a few seconds later when the roar from the guns stopped and the Gunship flew away, firing some missiles as it went, carefully removing her hands from her ears she looked out of her covers and promptly went back down as she threw up her breakfast at the sight that had greeted her, when she was done she took a few seconds to gather herself before she grabbed her pistol and carefully stood up on somewhat shaky legs to survey the landscape, trying to ignore the mangled bodies of her former opponents.

Noticing that some kind of small crate had been dropped from the Gunship she approached and opened it, a terrifying smile broke out on her face as she picked up the HMWA spectre assault rifle, beneath it in the case was a small note that only read "I think you might need this, hugs and kisses from Mom" scrunching the note she looked up with the smile still on her face, "oh you bastards, I am going to fuck you up so bad with this one"

deciding to advance forward she steadily held her rifle ready for any potential surprises, thankful for her mothers insistence that she should practice with an assault rifle one hour every day since she was ten years old, the next group of pirates that ran into her was very surprised as she ambushed them, cutting them all down in a matter of seconds.

That unfortunately only led to more pirates coming to her position but she had a large advantage in her military training as she expertly used her cover to pick down a few of them before she sprinted away, protected by a biotic barrier alongside the shields, taking up a new position and repeating the process.

She quickly lost herself to the fighting as she gunned her opponents down or killed with her biotic's, her survival instincts making her kill everything she could see, she was fighting through a blood red haze that was covering her eyes and she barely noticed the stings from the enemies bullets whenever they would penetrate her shields and armor.

Eventually it was a krogan that managed to bring her down when he charged and broke both her legs with a devastating charge, the pain overrode her senses for a few moments, giving the krogan time to hit her head with the butt of his rifle.

Barely aware of what she was doing she managed to grab her pistol and fired of several shots, once again luck was on her side as two of them hit the mighty krogan in the face while the rest went wide, her muscle's to sore to handle the recoil from the pistol.

With blood in her mouth and several teeth knocked lose the last thing she saw was the helmet of an Alliance Marine standing above her, firing wildly.

* * *

Sarah was eagerly shoving down some strawberry yogurt as she laid in her hospital bed, she hadn't been told yet how long she had been knocked out but from the hunger she felt it must have been day's since the battle and she was eagerly wolfing down any food that the doctors and nurses would put in her reach.

Looking up at the door opening she quickly came to attention as one of the doctors and a man she knew very well from photos, Admiral Steven Hackett, every scrap of information she had on her head was immediately remembered before she wondered what he was doing here to see her.

"At ease Gunnery Chief." Sarah only relaxed slightly. "Good work out there, Gunny, according to our estimates you are the only reason Elysium is still standing, according to security vids outside the settlement perimeter you managed to single handedly bring down three dozen pirates and slavers on your own."

his words shocked her, she had no idea that she had killed so many pirates, for a moment she remembered the destroyed face of a batarian she had killed early in the fighting and she tried to resist the urge to puke unsuccessfully, she managed to turn away from the Admiral when she suddenly found a paper bag in her hands to throw up in.

It took several minutes before her stomach calmed, "sorry sir, always do that after combat, I-" she weakly managed to get out after a few moments "no need to explain, allot of soldier's have some sort of method to cope with killing another sentient being, take your time Gunny to calm down while the doctor goes over your injuries."

she barely listened to the doctor's words as he described her injuries, most of which she had already figured out, her mother was very throughout and had made sure to cram as much knowledge into her small brain as it could handle, Sarah sometimes suspected that her mother had messed around with her genes to a much further extent than was considered legal.

Anyway she really could have figured out that her legs had been pretty much crushed considering that they were cast in steel bars to prevent her from moving them, and if she guessed right they had probably done something to her nerves so she wouldn't feel any pain.

Everything after that was minor injuries in her eyes, although she did find out that she had suffered a pretty nasty head wound and lost some blood from it, musing on it she thought that might explain why everything had taken a red hue during the fight.

When the Admiral started speaking she refocused again, his words were at least something she didn't know. "as soon as the doctor say so you will be taken back to Earth, as I said earlier your actions saved the entire colony and it has been decided that you will be awarded with the Star of Terra."

no training in the world could have masked her shock, but Hackett ignored her expression has he continued.

"then when you are fully healed, we would like you to ICT program, from what we have seen, you have more than enough to become an N7 and we want you to become one, you have been watched for awhile by fleet command and _someone_ has been pushing for your acceptance into the N7 program." her he finally stopped speaking.

Sarah held back a curse as she realized that her mother had been behind _every single thing_ on Elysium, the pirate raid, her oh so sudden gift of the most expensive and exclusive weapon in the galaxy as well as the quick arrival of the Alliance fleet.

*dammit mom, what are you planning now?*

"sir, I accept your offer to join the ICT" what else could she say? Besides she had hopped for this opportunity since she was six years old.

* * *

"dammit mom, what are you up too? This little raid of yours almost got me killed and now I find out you have marked me for N7? Not that i haven't dream't about it but there's always something going on in your brain, so will you be so kind and explain things to me?"

Hannah giggled at the angry tone of her daughter's voice through the message, she knew that her daughter would have been fine, and if not? Well there was some _very_ interesting new technologies she wanted to try out, should be capable of healing pretty much everything. If TIM wasn't long dead she would have to thank him for his interest in more... questionable research.

While absently typing away on her omni tool to order an assassination for Elanos Haliat now that he had served his purpose (she didn't need any lose ends being angry with her daughter after all) she used her other hand to activate her recorder.

"sweetie, how would you like becoming the first human spectre?"

* * *

_good? bad? i can't tell if anything i write is any good, everything i write look like shit to me so i need you guys to tell me how i am doing._

_Eliza is a human made AI created at Gagarin station, i don't know to much about her since i took it of the ME wiki but it seemed like a good idea for an information broker.  
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_Elanos Haliat was the guy responsible for the skyllian blitz  
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_and yes i decided to kill TIM this early, unlike canon two big intel organizations coming from the same species are bound to have been competing with each other for a long while, and yes the mention of his cigars are taken from the shadow broker files in game.  
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_in this story Miranda managed to find an alternative to the questionably moral Cerberus and, not wanting to become like her father, grabbed it with both hands, Hannah of course used it to her own purposes since she lack some morals of her own and only really cares about herself and her daughter, we haven't seen it so far but she will kick a few puppies now and then, away from her daughters eyes of course...  
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_Reviews please!  
_


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